


Every soul will taste of death.

by eskandarrohani (erohani)



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Character of Color, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Muslim Character, Talking To Dead People
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:08:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26123218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erohani/pseuds/eskandarrohani
Summary: The Prophet ascended to heaven from Jerusalem. Kadar merely died here, in the ruins hidden deep beneath the Temple Mount.Being dead is boring, but Altaïr’s reappearance in Jerusalem makes it marginally less so.__Written forThe Eagle's Path Zine.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 35
Collections: The Eagle's Path | An Assassin's Creed Zine





	Every soul will taste of death.

**Author's Note:**

> [The Eagle's Path Zine](https://eaglespath.carrd.co/) is available as a FREE download, so definitely be sure to check that out for amazing art, written work, and visual photography spanning the franchise :) It was a wonderful project to participate in, and I hope you enjoy both this fic and everyone else's work!
> 
> Title comes from Surah Al-'Imran (Quran 3:185).

When Kadar was a child, he picked up a burning charcoal.

It wasn’t something he’d set out to do when he walked outside to watch the whole lamb roast on a spit over the open flame, greasy beads of fat dripping off the small carcass and spitting off the glowing embers below. He’d been drawn by the aroma of fire and slowly cooking meat, but in the end it was the unearthly radiance of the charcoals that kept him mesmerized.

Somewhere behind him, Malik was shouting at him. Something about cats and claws. Kadar doesn’t quite remember that part now. He does remember what happened next.

There was one lump of charcoal that was perfectly round and ablaze with smoldering threads the colors of a sunset. It was otherworldly, it was beautiful. It was impossible to resist.

He reached for it with hands that hadn’t been washed since he’d offered noontime prayers, nail beds lined with crescent moons of mountain dirt, plucked it from the fire, and cradled it in his palms.

It was only for the briefest of moments, more fleeting than the space between two heartbeats, that Kadar held that unnatural sphere and felt like God, admiring His freshly ignited sun. Did God feel the peculiar numbness that Kadar felt? Like he would never again be held captive by anything quite as spectacular as this small, blazing ball of light?

Then the fascination abruptly cut into pain. The fire ripped through his nervous system, searing hot and throbbing in the tender skin of his palms. Kadar was screaming, unable to drop the charcoal but unable to bear it any longer. It was Malik who finally pried it from his grasp, flinging it aside, and shouting in Kadar’s face, calling him stupid, calling him foolish, because violence was the first thing that Malik ever reached for. He kept his wrath tucked beneath his tongue, like a mountain viper with its venom, and sometimes he lashed out for fear rather than actual anger.

The sting of Malik’s words didn’t linger, and ultimately neither did the shiny, pus-filled burns that swelled across Kadar’s palms. What did stay with him was that stolen moment when he held the ball of light and beheld its wonder. Even as a child he knew it was very special, despite Malik decrying it as a cautionary tale. _Whoever plays with a cat will find its claws_.

Kadar carried this experience with him all the way into Solomon’s Temple, where he beheld a second golden sphere filled with light, its bitingly cold metal pressing into the skin of his palms, unwashed since morning prayers. Malik yanked that sphere from his hands, too.

And it was just as well, because while Kadar had been stupidly marveling at this strange, perfect artifact, he had been cleaved across the middle with a broadsword, and he needed both hands to keep his organs in his belly.

***

Being dead is boring.

Kadar does not go to God, as he expected, but rather he follows Malik out of Solomon’s Temple and back to the stronghold at Masyaf, and from there to Jerusalem.

For someone recently bereaved of one arm and one brother, Malik is coping infuriatingly well. Part of Kadar had hoped to see Malik shed his anger and reveal some of the latent turmoil undoubtedly lurking just under his skin. Instead, Malik accepts the retirement disguised as a promotion, dons the ceremonial black _abaya_ that comes with his new position, and he compartmentalizes.

Malik is good at running the bureau, which is not at all a surprise since he relishes any opportunity to be in charge and always rises to the occasion. Under his shrewd guidance, errors are non-existent and Jerusalem is as quiet as a place on the precipice of explosion can be. Local assassins and their affiliates drop by to deliver reports, their conversations always sounding slightly askew, their dialect never quite able to share a rhythm with Malik’s.

For the most part, Kadar loafs around the bureau, unseen, uninvolved, uninterested. When he does venture outside, it’s invariably to wander around the Dome of the Rock.

Kadar sits atop the shrine, the unforgiving heat in its black lead dome searing through the cotton of his trousers. Jerusalem spreads out before the Temple Mount, gnarled olive trees and dark smears of cypresses breaking up a pale landscape dominated by minarets and squat sun-bleached buildings. The streets swell with pilgrims and soldiers and merchants trying to bully frustrated customers into bad deals.

The Prophet ascended to heaven from this place. Kadar merely died here, in the ruins hidden deep beneath the shrine. His bones are still down there, entombed and quietly forgotten.

Beside Kadar, Altaïr lets out a frustrated sound and swiftly removes a crossbow bolt from his bicep. He’d had an unfortunate run-in with some of the city’s watch, and while Altaïr had managed to silence the archer with a well-placed dagger before the whole of Jerusalem was set on alert, he hadn’t gotten away unscathed. Blood seeps through the white cloth of his uniform, deep red like the juice of pomegranate seeds. He doesn’t do much to staunch the wound apart from pressing a blood-sticky hand over it.

Kadar drawls, “Imagine you lost that arm like Malik lost his.”

Altaïr goes completely still. Then his eyes flicker an inhuman gold and he stares right at Kadar. Kadar stares back.

Being dead is boring, but Altaïr’s reappearance in Jerusalem makes it marginally less so.

***

The designated target cuts a massive silhouette. As Sibrand skulks amid the crowds of cowering people, he radiates paranoia and danger in a way that leaves no room for misinterpretation.

Kadar stands with Altaïr on the docks, the blood of the slain scholar cooling on the flagstones underfoot. Eyeing the clusters of Teutonic Knights patrolling the stretch of the coast, Kadar warily asks, “You’re not going to try and cut down everyone to get to him, are you?”

Because that’s what the Altaïr that Kadar had grown up with would have defaulted to. This new Altaïr is different. Less like the flames that devour kindling and more like the toxic fumes that hang overhead—hidden amidst visible threats, but no less lethal.

These past few weeks, Kadar has watched Altaïr infiltrate palaces and fortresses, his strategy thoughtful. Kadar doesn’t remember Altaïr as being particularly thoughtful. It’s a strange outfit he’s trying on, but it isn’t altogether unwelcome.

Altaïr doesn’t acknowledge Kadar, eyes remaining dark and inscrutable as he contemplates his next move. He meanders around a drunk and leaps atop the dock pilings, hopping his way out across the sea and launching throwing knives at the lookouts scattered about the port. Kadar follows, watching the increasingly dark water dance beneath him. He never learned how to swim in life. Neither had Altaïr.

Aboard his flagship, Sibrand fires arrows at anything and everything that startles him, so blinded by his fear of death that he fails to notice the very real threat slinking on board while his back is turned. When Altaïr quietly slits his throat, the only expression that Sibrand can manage is confusion.

There’s something ritualistic about the assassination: the blood erupting in a warm rush over Altaïr’s fingers, the growing ruby stain on Sibrand’s white tabard, his slack mouth gasping at the sky until it can gasp no more. It feels like a good moment to recite a prayer, but Kadar doesn’t know what words are appropriate to mark the passing of a Christian. Altaïr dips a downy feather in Sibrand’s blood, smooths his eyes shut, and lowers him to the deck with care. This is the respect he pays.

The respect goes unrecognized by the other two knights on the ship, who finally notice the grim tableau laid out on the quarterdeck and charge to avenge their master. A mace smashes into Altaïr’s side, sending him flying overboard and into the Mediterranean. He flails in the roiling water, limbs thrashing as he struggles for purchase. Altaïr’s hood falls away. Blind terror contorts his features, the expression foreign, unsettling, and _young_. His glowing eyes wildly dart about until he zeros in on Kadar’s face. He opens his mouth as if to shout, but before he can form the words, his head slips beneath the waves.

Kadar catapults after him.

Although he had never learned how to swim in life, Kadar’s fear of drowning had been left behind in the ruins of the Temple, discarded along with his physical form.

More or less.

Kadar was raised in the same household as Malik, and if there was anything he learned from being Malik’s brother, it was that a stubborn man could reduce even the tallest mountain to rubble. Kadar doesn’t need to take down a mountain; he needs to save Altaïr.

Just like the gold in Altaïr’s eyes, Kadar blinks in and out of existence. He appears in bursts, only to vanish from reality a breath later, leaving nothing behind but a displaced void in the sea. He seizes Altaïr by the leather of his dagger sheath, teeth gritted as he yanks him towards the closest dinghy. Kadar barely manages to drag Altaïr half over the edge of the boat before he vanishes back out of the physical world.

***

The rooftop garden they’re holed up in has seen better days: spoiled tomatoes and Aleppo peppers litter the soil beneath skeletal plants, and flies and other vermin peruse the offerings, the hum of wingbeats inspiring itchiness even in Kadar, who no longer has a physical body for the insects to annoy.

Altaïr twitches one of the curtains aside, surveying the situation unfolding in Acre as word of Sibrand’s death travels. Bells crash throughout the district, not quite drowning out the barking soldiers sprinting through the streets down below. Altaïr releases the curtain and settles down by a stack of chipped pottery. He’ll have to wait this one out.

Kadar crouches in the opposite corner, inspecting the shrivelled corpse of a mouse. It lies crumpled beside a chunk of a dehydrated wild apple that has stayed untouched by the multitude of pests roaming about the garden. Poisoned, Kadar supposes. Pity slices through his heart as he regards its tiny body. How sad to have found something so exciting only to perish.

“Thank you,” Altaïr says. Kadar doesn’t react at first, so used to going unnoticed and unaddressed that it takes a moment to realize that Altaïr is speaking to him. He turns. Altaïr’s hood is still down, water droplets clinging to his eyebrows, to the sweep of his eyelashes. With his face exposed, there can be no mistaking the focus of his attention. “I would have died if not for you.”

Overwhelmed, Kadar blusters, “Anyone would have done the same.”

Altaïr says, “I didn’t.”

The truth lands like a slap, and Kadar looks back at the dead mouse. He scratches at the dirt, hoping to bury its body, but the physical world exists on a different plane than he does, and though he can feel soil catching beneath his fingernails, there is nothing to show for his efforts. A hollow ache resonates through Kadar, echoing all the way to his bones in Jerusalem, abandoned because of Altaïr’s folly. He folds his dirty hands in his lap. He says, quietly, “Then perhaps you will choose a different course of action, should you ever find yourself in that scenario again.”

Altaïr considers this. He says, “You are a greater man than I was at your age.”

Before he can stop himself, Kadar mutters, “I died a greater man than you are now.”

“Malik would certainly agree.” A weary half-smile pulls at Altaïr’s mouth, his scar going lopsided. He heaves his body up and crosses the garden to join Kadar, trailing seawater with each step. He draws his dagger and digs a shallow trench in the dirt. Gently, he picks up the dead mouse and places it in the hole. Kadar leans forward to stare at the mouse in its shabby little grave. 

“I am sorry, Kadar.”

Kadar glances up at Altaïr. Still pallid from his brush with death, Altaïr looks exhausted, beaten. Kadar sucks in a long breath through his nose and lets it out slowly. He lowers his gaze to the mouse. “It is done,” he says.

Altaïr nods once. Then he gathers a handful of dirt and buries the mouse.

Kadar closes his eyes.

_It is done, it is done._


End file.
